Lanashree Thanda

• Function: Director
• Company: BC Initiative

Dr Lanashree Thanda is a Director of BC Initiative, a consulting firm specialising in developmental justice, with projects ranging from conducting diagnostic governance analysis to ethical surveys.

BCI’s core passion, on the other hand, is in developing scalable solutions from the ground up in collaboration with indigenous and local communities, as well as worker communities (on plantations) impacted by unsustainable development.

Lanash has over 17 years of on-the-ground working experience in Sabah, Malaysia, setting up legal, institutional and governance setups for environmental and human rights issues. She has served as the Country Consultant for Transboundary Pelagic work between Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. She also has sat on many Environmental Impact Assessment Panels.

She is currently a member of the the RSPO BHCV Working group and the RSPO Complaints Panel. Lanash was also the President of the Sabah Environmental Protection Association (SEPA), a Sabah-based environmental association, from 2013 to 2019.

Lanash has extensive experience working with indigenous and local communities to develop community protocols, as well as working in various capacities on obtaining and implementing the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) process for BCI’s clients.

Lanash currently leads the RSPO Malaysian Outreach Programme Pilot Conflict Prevention Platform (CPP) for ILCs and Labour Task Force in Sabah.